The Limit to Enjoying the Little Things
by e.vermillion
Summary: During one of their numerous Twinkie-raids, Columbus makes a decision that lands him in hot water with Tallahassee. Question is... why? slash T/C, two-part. Rated T for language, gore, and potentially sexual content! Rating may go up for last chapter.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own Zombieland or any of it's Talumbus-y goodness. I'm just trying to emulate a small piece of it here. :D

Some quick notes; Little Rock and Wichita are not mentioned in this fic, not because I don't like them, but mostly because this was a quick experimental fic, and I didn't want to over-complicate things. :/ Let me know if you need anything about this fake timeline clarified!

First serious crack at something other than Yugioh, haha! Here we go~

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I'd always known that Tallahassee's obsession with a certain Hostess snack was going to cause us more trouble than necessary. From the moment we pulled open a potentially zombie-filled van just to find a pastry, it occurred to me that there was something clearly very wrong with this guy. After all, who in their right mind is risking life and limb to find a cream-filled treat when the trade-off might be a zombie finding your head the carnivorous alternative? Clearly, no one.

However, this redneck's obsession taught me something very important, and that is that when the world has turned into some fucked up giant game of cannibal tag, there just isn't time to worry about every damn little risk. You just have to enjoy the little things when you can. And I had come to realize that the Twinkies Tallahassee was so perilously chasing after represented a lot more to him than a snack. By then, I just had to help him look for the stupid things.

In our aimless journey across the United States of Zombieland, he and I were ever on a quest to find _'los submarinos.' _It was on such a quest that things went weird - really fucking weird, and that's saying something coming from a guy who takes a shotgun with him to the toilet.

"If there ever was, is, or will be anything resembling a god out there, one of those fuckin' delicious yellow sun'bitches will be right in there."

With that very philosophical statement, Tallahassee was slamming the door of the hummer with a 'whoop' before I even realized that we had stopped, my nose buried in a map. I sighed my frustration as loudly as possible in the space of time between Tallahassee jumping out of the car and opening the trunk to search for some other obscenely inappropriate weapon to use on the flesh-chomping fuckers that had become as common to our every day as taking a piss. Had I exaggerated my annoyance any longer, I dare say he may have used the tricycle frame he was currently weighing on the back of my head.

"Tallahassee, can we… really just move on?" I asked, turning around in my passenger's side seat to look at him. "It's been night for a while, and we still haven't found a place to stop." I said. As always, the voice of reason.

He snorted at me, adding what looked to be a three-pronged candelabra to his repertoire of skull-smashing devices. I was halfway to wondering where we got all of this weird shit from when he began speaking.

"Spitfuck," he began (oh, ever the affectionate name), "somewhere in this backwater state there has got to be a Twinkie - some goddamn where. It could be here. And you want me to miss this opportunity of a lifetime, because - " And here, he switched to a rather lovely impression of someone who I assume must have been me, judging by the high-pitched bitchy tone he usually adopted when doing so, "_oh boo-fuckin'-hoo, it's past my bedtime and I am _so _tired from sitting on my ass and sleeping all -_"

"Fine, fine! I get it!" I snapped, tossing the Kentucky map in the back seat to open my door, while not daring to look at Tallahassee. Reportedly, he had sent men to the ER for less than interrupting his impressions. I was only risking it because I knew the thrill of the hunt, either for zombies or Twinkies, would keep him from taking it out of my ass. Maybe.

When I rounded the hummer to stand next to him, I was carrying my weapon of choice, the shotgun, primo for all of my zombie-killing needs. Tallahassee snorted again at my lack of creativity, but it would be me who was snorting when a zombie was chewing his arm off for trying to close-combat it. Well… maybe not, seeing as if Tallahassee bit it, then I stood perhaps a snowflake's chance in hell.

He stripped off his snakeskin jacket, but left his hat on, tossing the former into the trunk before slamming it shut. He stored two handguns and an AK on his personage and did an ammo check, still clutching the candlestick as his primary weapon.

"Can we speed it up? It's only getting darker," I said, my eyes darting around apprehensively. I could feel Tallahassee's amused, pale-eyed gaze on me as I checked to make sure my Ziploc baggie shells were in my pocket.

"Quit being such a pussy and let's move it." he said, and began making his way towards the convenience store front. I had always really hated convenience stores, even before Zombieland, what with their gross bathrooms and stoner clerks and inability to carry Code Red Mountain Dew. But my hatred for such places had gone up at least ten-fold since the start of the end of the world.

I trailed Tallahassee quietly, and the stupid fucking shakes that I always get when imminently dealing with zombies began. I moved the decimated aglet of my brown sweatshirt to my teeth and chewed it nervously. I scanned my surroundings as we walked, and wondered about the weirdly high number of cars parked around this small, rather isolated convenience store. There were at least twenty cars in the lot. I guessed that this had been the place to be for the apocalypse.

We reached the door of the market - so far, so good - and Tallahassee looked around once at the entrance to the place. Two empty aluminum trash bins stood by the glass-paned doors, through which nothing living or re-living was immediately visible. Unexpectedly, Tallahassee shoved the candelabra under his waistband and lifted one of the bins in the air. Before I even had time to shout all of 'what the fuck-!,' glass, as well as the sound of it shattering into tiny bits, filled the air.

"Daddy's home!" Tallahassee shouted as he stepped though the jagged doorframe, and grinning as he slipped the heavy metal object from his waist again.

The reaction was almost immediate. Two of the infected motherfuckers, one male and one female, came careening out of different aisles, what looked to be rotting deli meat hanging from their open, decaying mouths.

"I'll take her!" I shouted, and brought my gun level to my hammering chest as the two zombies neared.

"Of course you will!" said Tallahassee, flipping the candelabra in his hand so he was holding onto one of the prongs. He swung just as I pulled the trigger, my scatter blasting away the limping woman's decaying midriff. She collapsed in two parts. After a thorough double-tap (of course), I turned around to see Tallahassee waling on the already pulpy mass of what used to be the zombies head, leaving a bigger and bigger mess on the floor with every swing.

"I think it's dead," I said in my most observant tone, turning back to the aisles quickly. I edged forward a little, getting closer to the entrances to each aisle, when for some reason, it was just now that my dumb-shit brains put two and two together. There was only one possible meaning to all of the cars outside: lots of cars meant lots of people and lots of people meant lots of…

"_Holy fucking mother of fucking - _" I staggered backward as five - no, ten - no, twenty, and counting of the undead began surging out of the aisles.

"_Tallahassee!_" I screamed, raising my shotgun to blast a hole through three zombies, only one of them falling, and all of them getting closer -

I had no idea what Tallahassee was doing behind me, but I could suddenly hear him shouting back at me, words I couldn't hear over my frantic attempts to keep the zombies at bay. Even if we ran now, there was no way we could leave without having to put up a fight. Out of my peripherals, I saw Tallahassee suddenly dart forward, a handgun in each hand, blowing away heads, but at the same time, running away from me? It took me a minute to realize that he was trying to lure some of them away.

There was a momentary lull in my shotgun blasts, where I fumbled with more ammo, and I finally heard all of what Tallahassee was trying to say.

" - DUMBFUCK, get to the fucking CAR!"

I stumbled back once more as the next wave got too close. I pulled the trigger wildly, attempting to clear a path to Tallahassee. He may have been a one-man zombie-killing machine, but there was no gate to protect him today.

I cleared a temporary line, long enough to see Tallahassee Sparta-kick a zombie about ten feet away from me into an aisle wall, breaking an end stand and sending packages of candy everywhere. I blasted another set of zombies clamoring towards me. How many more of these fuckers were there? And how long could I last with only so many shells and Tallahassee so far away?

In an attempt to find some reloading time, I dove between two of the undead, swearing at the top of my lungs as I clambered into an unoccupied aisle, pushing a shelf over behind me to buy some time. I could just see the top of Tallahassee's hat over the other aisles, and the flying spatters of blood that I could only hope weren't his. As I backed into the aisle, looking around desperately while I reloaded, I saw something astonishing; more astonishing, yes, than a half-decaying man feasting on the flesh of the living.

Two aisles over and at the very end of the store, on the very top shelf was the most dumbfounding thing I had ever seen.

It was a whole fucking case of Twinkies.

"Jesus…" I breathed, my eyes huge. I whipped around to where I had come from to pump more flak into zombie bodies when I saw Tallahassee, covered in gore, at the front of the market.

"Columbus! Get the fuck up here NOW!" he shouted, and immediately turned away to smash more skulls, seemingly having either run out of ammo, or just figured close-range was smarter at this point. I looked from him back to the case of what I knew would end these stupid-ass unnecessary trips for a long time. And then I did the stupidest damn thing I think I have ever done in my entire life.

I ran in the opposite direction of Tallahassee.

I could hear his shouts, but not understand them, as I barreled through a few more zombies, adrenaline mildly deafening me. It seemed as though their numbers had thinned out. I screeched to a halt at the end of the aisle and turned left.

And suddenly, I was standing at the base of shelf, staring up at the holy fucking grail of pastries. That was when a primal growl tore from my left. My head swiveled towards the storefront, and there, feet away, was the biggest, buffest, most fucking bat-shit scary zombie I had seen in my entire Zombieland life. He was inches taller than Tallahassee, and his biceps were as big as my head. He was wearing a red flannel shirt with a name patch that read "Buck."

Even at this extremely fucking stupid time, the irony was not lost on me, and my brain wasted a millisecond in thinking, 'gee, I hope Tallahassee doesn't freak out when he sees this guy's shirt.' Buck raised his huge hand towards me, and, swallowing another wave of profanities, I raised the barrel of my shotgun, only to have it wrenched from my grip and swung into the aisle wall, effectively breaking my shotgun in two and sending the coveted box of Twinkies down on my head, along with several other shelved goods.

I stumbled, dazed by the disturbingly heavy box of Hostess snacks, and fell back onto my elbows, my vision bleeding to white at the edges. With no fucking clue as to what I was doing, I clung to the box that had nearly knocked me unconscious like a life-line and clambered backwards on my ass until my back hit the refrigerated foods section of the store. The smell of rotted meat and eggs, and long-curdled dairy hit me as soon as I hit the wall, and, combined with my already swimming head, I had to fight back a wave of nausea as the huge zombie advanced on me.

I couldn't honestly believe it was going to end like this - clinging to a box of Twinkies and certainly about to throw up on myself while I waited for an undead redneck to chew my intestines out.

"T-Tallahassee…" I breathed, for some unknown reason. I think I meant to scream it, but with my imminent death approaching and the putrefying refrigerated section in my lungs, I was barely even able to utter what I believed to be my last words.

And then, the zombie stopped, only a foot away from me, his hands reaching for my neck. I stared at him, huge-eyed, wondering what the hell…? The undead never _hesitated_.

Then, I got my answer as to what the hell. A rusted metal bar, but more familiarly, a piece of the tricycle frame Tallahassee had chosen, had burst through the front of Buck's skull, leaving a weirdly perplexed, open-mouthed expression frozen on his stupid face as he collapsed to the side, almost a whole trike attached to the back of his head. Tallahassee concluded the zombie's decimation with a forceful, booted stomp, right to the side of his head, which cracked and leaked like a melon.

I stared at my almost-killer's squashed head on the grimy tile for a moment longer, before I looked up at Tallahassee. He was covered in the gore of maybe thirty zombies, but there didn't appear to be a bodily scratch on him.

"Tallahassee," I repeated, and only then did I realize that I had been holding my breath. My heart was still beating into my ribs.

And suddenly, Tallahassee's pale blue eyes were on me, and you'd have thought that I was a zombie from the way he was looking at me.

"T-Talla-?" I muttered, but my breath caught in my throat as the cowboy grabbed me by the front of my sweatshirt and hauled me roughly to my feet, sending the box of very hard-earned pastries to the floor.

_Oh shit_, was all I could think as I looked at the furious expression on Florida's face.

"You mind telling me what the _fuck you were fucking thinking_?" Tallahassee shouted. I blanched, again honestly frightened for my life.

"I-I'm sorry, I tried to tell you - "

"SHUT the hell up, you stupid little spitfuck!" he screamed in my face. I had been in a state of constant shock for about the past ten minutes, and now the cause of that alarm was Tallahassee's sudden rage.

"Why are you so angry?" I asked, trying to stand my ground, but the righteous anger that was supposed to have been in my voice nowhere to be found, "I was just getting what we came here for!" I said, pointing to the white box marked "Hostess Twinkies." He barely glanced at it before kicking it away. It didn't go far before it smacked the nearest body.

"I fucking gave you an order and you did the _exact_ opposite," Tallahassee said, his voice dangerously low.

"Jesus Christ, I couldn't hear you over the - "

"DON'T give me your _bullshit _excuses." he snarled, practically slamming me back into the refrigerated doors behind me. I choked back a weird strangled sound, and quickly hoped he hadn't heard me whimper like a kicked puppy.

He suddenly pushed me so roughly away from the doors that I nearly fell, and was glaring at me when I righted myself.

"Now get to the fucking car and fucking stay there until I'm done getting our supplies." he said, and stalked off, stomping on another zombie head as he did so.

I released yet another breath I had had no idea I had been holding, and realized that I was shaking. The sudden silence in the store seemed oppressive. I found I much preferred the clamoring flesh-eating cannibals to this bizarre, strained silence. My chest suddenly hurt for some reason, and I tried to ignore all of the littering bodies around me, either brutalized by Tallahassee or I. More likely Tallahassee.

I picked my way over to the upturned box of Twinkies and looked at them silently, then in the direction Florida had vanished, and I wondered exactly what I had done to make him more pissed at me than he ever had been before.

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A/N: One more part to go! **PLEASE**, if you read this, tell me what you'd like to see in the next chapter. Reviews are always appreciated!


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